St. Matthew xxv.41: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

I read an anonymous quote this week which seemed appropriate to share with you this Sunday, the fourth of the Four Last Things, Hell: “Everyone will live forever. Not everyone will enjoy it.”

Satan hates us so very much. For all the rebellion and hatred he bears to God, he cannot hurt God directly, for God is all powerful. Even when he thought he could hurt Christ, he could not tempt Him into sin. He could not break Christ on the Cross. Instead, Christ broke the power of Satan and Hell on the Cross.

However, Satan can hurt God’s creatures. Unlike the angels, we men are made in the image of God. Satan seeks to destroy us like a ravening lion. So when Old Scratch and his demons get their filthy claws on us in Hell, they torture for all eternity.

Both man and angel are created, are designed, are built to bask in the presence of the great giver of life, the Lord God Almighty. As much as man and angel may hate God and seek to flee from his presence, so both are horribly distressed by great longing for God. That impure corrupted longing turned long ago into distorted loathing and hatred and contempt for the erstwhile object of love.

As Fr. Von Cochem says about the Devil:

Of all the fallen spirits, not one is so abominable as the chief of all, the haughty Lucifer, whose cruelty, malice and spite render him an object of dread not merely to the damned, but also to the devils subject to him. This Lucifer is called by various names in Holy Scriptures, all indicating his malignity. On account of his repulsiveness he is called a dragon; on account of his ferocity, a lion; on account of his malice, the old serpent; on account of his deceitfulness, the father of lies; on account of his haughtiness, king over all the children of pride; and on account of his great power and might, the prince of this world.

The other devils and demons are fallen angels who are not as mighty or created as perfectly good as Lucifer, and therefore are not so evil and ugly as him. Just as men often in Scripture behold angels and attempt to worship them because of their beauty and goodness, so we would hardly be able to abide the presence of demons in their unhidden form because of their ugliness and wickedness. That we can scarcely contemplate how miserable in appearance devils are is why they are often portrayed in a gruesome and grotesque manner.

Immediately after making my confession on retreat at Holy Spirit monastery in Conyers, I was visited in a nightmare by a creature so horrible in countenance that I could only barely describe it. I was immensely terrified and would have been frightened away from spiritual matters entirely – thus acquiescing to the damning of my soul – were I not fortified in the Holy Sacraments and prayer. The Sacraments are the grace of God the Son and prayer is ultimately of God the Father – when mediated by God the Holy Ghost, we are invincible to all demonic spiritual attack.

Hell is the place reserved for Satan, his demons, and cursed men. It is a place of everlasting fire. St. Matthew xxv.41: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:” Hell is real and everlasting, as is Heaven. The wicked and damned go to Hell forever, and the righteous and saved go to Heaven forever. St. Matthew xxv.46: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”

The Roman Christians in antiquity would stand prayerfully together as they would be mauled to death by wild animals in the Coliseum. They could die heroically at peace in our Lord while vicious beasts, deranged by hunger, would pounce upon them, pull them down, and tear their flesh with fang and claw. They could die this way because they had victory in Christ and knew that Hell had worse to offer. Think upon that, dear souls! How ruthlessly did the lions rip into their flesh! Would the angry hungry evil angels be more merciful than a brutalized innocent animal? Our brethren knew that the feasting of demons upon their Resurrection bodies would go on for eternity – and the demons would never eat their fill or satisfy their lust for flesh.

Oftentimes I have heard that the company would be better in Hell than in Heaven, as if Hell would be some great party that would never end. Perhaps the companionship would not be near as boring as would be the squares in Heaven. But loving-kindness is entirely missing in Hell. There is no camaraderie amongst the damned. Hell is the realm where all are embittered against each other, mocking and cursing with enmity for all.

St. Mark ix.43-4

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Christ says this not to injure our bodies. Sin does not work in our hands and feet and eyes. Sin works in our hearts. But indeed we should be counted among the blessed if we were to lose our hands and feet and eyes in this world and flourish in Heaven above for all eternity! The holy martyrs certainly thought so. St. Lawrence the Deacon was roasted alive. Yet knowing that Christ was his redeemer, he famously said to his executioners to turn him over, for this side was done! How could he be so bold as he died a death of torture? Because His savior lived! And St. Lawrence was about to join Him in Heaven. Truly the slings and insults of this world are nothing compared to the agonies of Hell.

So Christ says it is better to cut off your own body parts and live maimed than to go to Hell intact. And three times here in St. Mark’s Gospel Christ tells us why: “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” The filthy, rotten, tormenting, grotesque demons of Hell do not die in Hellfire. They gnaw on your soul for eternity. And the fire never wanes or dies either. For age unto age the blast furnace heat far exceeds the fire into which King Nebuchadnezzar threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That pagan king heated up that furnace seven times beyond its regular blaze. So very hot was it that the men who threw the three Jewish lads into it died from exposure to the heat. Yet God sent his angel to protect the young men in there. But Hellfire is profoundly hotter than the furnaces of Babylon, and God keeps his holy angels far from pits of Hell.

The rich man asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus with his finger dipped in water so to cool his burnt parched lips. But Father Abraham told that wicked soul that he had enjoyed his good things in his life and not done justice. There was no relief for him who had ignored the righteous soul starving at the gate, stepping over the poor man on his way about town. There is no relief in Hell, there is no companionship in Hell, there is no clean air to breathe in Hell, there is no rest from torment in Hell, and there is no peace and quiet in Hell.

The unforgiving oven of Hell continuously burns all flesh therein. And since all the cursed souls in Hell possess their eternal bodies, the stench of burning flesh does not abate over the millennia. The cries of the cursed, the stench of the damned, the torments of the devils, the separation from God, and the sheer inescapability of it all are too gruesome for us to understand but in the extremes of our language. For we still possess our frail bodies of our mortality. We still live our lives of decision. We may yet turn to God. We may yet spurn Satan and embrace Christ. Our judgement is still yet to come, for we mortal men remain alive … today. But as death and judgement await us, so does either Heaven or Hell.

St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians ii.9, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” Wonderful bounteous beauties await those who follow Christ unto the end. There, in Heaven, we will eternally witness and experience the dynamic loving-kindness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. But those in Hell are denied this, the Beatific Vision. The damned do not behold God, for they lived without God; they lived for themselves, and so they remain tortured by the lack of God for which they were made in the company of all the foul spirits who rejected God for themselves. Thus, those in perdition suffer the company of the most selfish wicked souls ever created while those in bliss enjoy the great love of those who put you above themselves.

We were made by God to enjoy God. To be denied God for eternity is the greatest sorrow man can know. Now we are on the earth in our mortal life, and so we can only barely glimpse what the damned miss. For we ourselves are yet getting to know God. We still foolishly believe that something other than God may bring us greater joy than our Creator. St. Bonaventure said, “The most terrible penalty of the damned is being shut out forever from the blissful and joyous contemplation of the Blessed Trinity.” St. John Chrysostom said, “I know many persons only fear Hell because of its pains, but I assert that the loss of the celestial glory is a source of more bitter pain than all the torments of Hell.” Every moment we feel loss or long for something we cannot have, we are touched by the lack of God in our lives. So we try to fill up our emptiness with the delights of the flesh and the world, with passions, honors, riches, sensual gratifications, and all the vain and fleeting pleasures of this realm. But all of these things are hollow and empty. God alone is the one true source of the soul’s happiness. To be finally denied the only source of happiness is logically to live in eternal despair and agony.

The eternal sorrow of the damned will recall their many occasions to turn from the way of wickedness, all the wrongs committed against God and neighbor, and all the many times their friends and family urged them to amend their ways. Thus their conscience will pain them beyond measure, along with the stench, the heat, the cries of the lost, and the torments of demons. They will forever know that they could have avoided such an unbearable fate had they only responded truthfully to the Lord of life instead of making their own way according to their own perverse and peculiar thoughts. Alas, the presence of their own minds, will, conscience, and memory, cause the damned everlasting torment so unspeakable that our stomachs quiver in disgust.

Dear children of God, do not listen to the whispers of this world, which are either the hushed tones of sinful men or fallen angels. David said (Psalm xiv.1): “THE fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” You will hear that there is no God, no punishment, and no Hell. You will be told that you may live your life however selfishly you wish and will never have to answer for your crimes. But those words tempt you away from Christ and straight into the maw of Satan.

To avoid Hell, you must believe in Jesus Christ and give your heart to Him, you must be Baptized into His Death and Resurrection, and you must repent of your sins.

To grow in Christ as a living branch of his Body, you must obey the Six Precepts or Duties of Churchmen. That is, worship every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation. Receive the Body and Blood of Christ frequently. Give our Lord the first tenth of your income in the tithe. Seek after righteousness by keeping your conscience clean of all sin and confess your sins if you fall. Fast like our Lord did when directed to by His Body. And keep the marriage laws of the Church, witnessing to the holiness of Christ.

If you are doing all these things, then seriously attend to prayer, good works, and studying the Holy Scripture. It is possible and not all that difficult to live such a life. Besides avoiding Hell, the soul who carefully lives a Christian life will grow closer and closer to our Lord while you still draw breath on this earth, after which He will not forget you in the world to come.

St. Matthew xxv.41: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.